2016 Nominations

The 21st Annual AWA Will Rogers Awards will be held March 16, 2017 at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Texas. The event is open to the public.

NOTE: NOMINATIONS ARE NOW CLOSED FOR 2016

We will be adding additional information as it becomes available. We will be posting all submitted music material in November. Please check to see if the information is correct, if not contact us. The first list of submitted material will be filtered to the nominated list and this will be submitted to the judges to be cut to the top ten, then resubmitted and cut to top five and winners. This will all be on a separate page in the website, with all Western-Western Swing and Pure Country submissions. If you wish to enter your material, I would suggest doing it yourself rather than leaving it up to someone else. We have very, very few submissions from outside sources.

Anyone is welcome to submit qualified artists and material, you do not have to be a member, only willing to take the time to submit your favorite artists to: working_cowboyhotmail.com, or mail to AWA, P O Box 35, Gene Autry, OK 73436

We are now accepting submissions for the 2017 Awards in all categories, but if you need immediate help, please contact working_cowboy@Hotmail.com.

All winners, with the exception of Western Music-Western Swing and Pure Country will be announced in January of 2018.

All material should have been produced from mid 2016-Nov. 1, 2017 in order to qualify. It can only be submitted once. If you are unsure as to whether it qualifies, please send to working_cowboy@hotmail.com If it is a CD/Album, please check with working_cowboy@hotmail.com before sending to see if it has already been submitted.

Final Entrants will receive notification when judging is complete and a public announcement is made only of the winners. The Will Rogers (Willy) statue will be presented to the winners.IMPORTANT:Winners must attend the awards ceremonies to receive the Willy. The AWA will not ship Willies to absentee winners. Only the actual winner is eligible to receive the Willie statue. Absentee winners will receive a certificate to signify their accomplishment.

We need the contact information, in case the material has not been submitted and we need to contact the artist for a copy and also to notify them when the final lists are out. If you are nominating someone for Media or Lifetime Achievement, please include a complete resume of the person, group, or event and a contact. All of these will be forwarded to the appropriate committee.

A little personal information about some of our awards.Buck Ramsey Cowboy Poetry Award. Given in recognition of our good friend, Buck Ramsey, Cowboy Poet from Amarillo, TX, who passed away a few years ago. Buck was one in a million, always a friendly face, wanting to help others and a tremendous talent. The AWA wants Buck to be remembered so we named a category dear to his heart for him.

Elmer Kelton Book Award. This is an award named for nationally known and recognized western writer, Elmer Kelton, San Angelo, TX. Many will remember the movie “The Good Old Boys” which was written by Elmer and starred Tommy Lee Jones. Elmer Kelton encouraged more people to become involved in writing and preserving our past. We have two sections for the Elmer Kelton Book Award, fiction and non fiction with the books being western in nature, either in the past or a contemporary outlook.

Garnet Brooks Chuckwagon Award. Garnet was a man ahead of his time. He started collecting all things western when it was not in fashion. He had everything from windmills to spurs to chuckwagons, but it is his interest in chuckwagons for which the award is given. Before Garnet and others, the wagons were rotting in the fields, being used for firewood, basically being lost to history. Through his collections, connections and wanting to preserve the past, they came up with a chuckwagon competition. The wagons are now preserved and will be forever. More people are involved and getting involved, new wagons are being built which will start a history of their own.

Don King Memorial Saddlemaker Award. Don King is a legend in the saddlemaking business and also for his work in tooling leather. Many many saddlemakers have studied his work and copied his work to make their work better. A dedicated saddlemaker who wasn’t afraid to share his skills with others to take the art of saddlemaking and leather tooling to another level. The quality of the western saddle is superior to any work that has been done in the past because of people like Don King. This award is given to a saddlemaker who is, for the most part, no longer making saddles, or a few, but has spent his life perfecting his craft and deserves to be recognized.